{"id":558466,"date":"2026-03-24T23:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T23:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/558466\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T23:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T23:06:10","slug":"cfl-combine-week-ball-looks-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/558466\/","title":{"rendered":"CFL Combine Week | Ball Looks Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine a four-day job interview in which your every move is studied, analyzed and over-analyzed by dozens of eyeballs.<\/p>\n

Your height matters. So does your weight. You need to run fast. Lift heavy reps. Jump high and, as well, jump far.<\/p>\n

Then you go mano-a-mano against other competitors and \u2014 while all this is unfolding \u2014 also be available for a series of sit down conversations with prospective employers in which you are occasionally grilled with more questions than a suspect in a crime spree case.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the Canadian Football League Combine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an event I had dreamed about since I was a kid \u2014 I wanted so much just to be able to participate,\u201d said Blue Bombers defensive back Ethan Ball \u2014 who attended last year\u2019s event in Regina \u2014 in a chat this week with bluebombers.com<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be overwhelming if you let it be. And you spend your whole offseason leading up to it prepping for some testing drills you\u2019ll likely never do again. Then when it\u2019s over you start worrying about where you\u2019ll be drafted and when you are drafted when fit is most important.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody getting drafted in the CFL is signing a $5 million signing bonus,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, whether you third overall or 54th overall, what\u2019s most important is the fit where you go. Nobody cares when you get to your team whether you were drafted in the seventh round like Nick Hallett or if you go first overall. That\u2019s what matters more than anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CFL is all about getting a chance in a camp and then proving yourself from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The 2026 CFL Combine runs this week in Edmonton, with team interviews with prospects beginning Thursday, on field testing on Friday with two practice sessions on Saturday and a final one Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

The event will feature 95 players eligible for the CFL Draft on April 28th, with five players eligible for the CFL Global Draft a day later also participating. That list features five Winnipeggers in receiver Nathan Udoh and offensive lineman Victor Olaniran of the University of Manitoba, centre Gio Vaccaro (who played with the Bisons before spending last year at Purdue), defensive back Trae Tomlinson of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and defensive lineman Nathan Carabatsakis of Robert Morris University.<\/p>\n

The testing events feature the bench press along with the 40-yard dash, 3-cone, short shuttle, broad jump and vertical jump with a good explainer of the purpose of each drill here courtesy CFL.ca:<\/p>\n

CFL Combine 101: The basics behind every drill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Blue Bombers\u2019 2025 CFL Draft class, FYI, provided a dandy haul for the club, with linebacker Connor Shay (1st round, sixth overall), linebacker Jaylen Smith (2-15), OL Ethan Vibert (3-27), WR Joey Corcoran (5-39), LB Lane Novak (5-45) and Ball (6-54) all suiting up for games last year. Second-round pick Taylor Elgersma, a quarterback out of Wilfrid Laurier, attended camp with the Green Bay Packers last year and is now with the Birmingham Stallions of the UFL while eighth-round selection Iwinosa Uwubanmwem, who will be in camp this year.<\/p>\n

Prospects prepare for the event for months\/years leading up to it. But it\u2019s also a physical grind and potentially a stressful torture test. So much is at stake, as teams weigh what they see at the Combine against what a player\u2019s game film reveals.<\/p>\n

Again, every rep matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proudest moment I had at the combine \u2014 and no one would have known this but myself \u2014 came after I didn\u2019t run the 40 I wanted,\u201d Ball said, who ran a 4.66. \u201cI felt tense and could have run faster. Then immediately after that we go into the broad jump and my first jump sucked. I knew what I had done in training and my first jump was 8-9 inches less than I had jumped the week before.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, I\u2019m sitting there rattled and thinking, \u2018Am I going to let this day and this opportunity get away from me?\u2019 I took a deep breath and told myself, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re fine. It\u2019s one or two bad reps. It\u2019s going to happen in football. How are you going to bounce back?\u2019 My next jump I had one of my best jumps even through training. Then it was all about getting back into the drills for the rest of the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t jump the vertical you want, just try to move on to the next drill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each team requests a certain amount of prospect for one-on-one sessions during the Combine, although some leave those conversations with players from their own backyard for later in the spring and before the draft.<\/p>\n

Ball said he worried most about the testing and felt confident in his ability to handle whatever might be tossed at him in the interview portion of the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery team approaches it differently,\u201d he said. \u201cSome teams are more formal. They were videotaping you; you have the coach and GM off to one side and all these people sitting at a table and it felt like you were under the spotlight. There were Xs and Os questions \u2014 what do you do in this scheme? What do you know about this special teams scheme? Some tougher questions sometimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bombers\u2026 it was Coach (Mike) O\u2019Shea and (GM) Kyle Walters sitting down at a table and it was more about trying to find out what kind of guy you are, how much do you love the game, what was your upbringing like, who are you closest to in your life, what are you like outside of football.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what stood out to me. It really felt like three dudes who you knew loved the game who were talking about their passion for football. It felt more like a conversation than a pop quiz and trying to grill you on Xs and Os.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember this very clearly,\u201d added Ball. \u201cThey asked me how I thought my testing went. I was like, \u2018I was disappointed in my 40 \u2014 I would have liked to have ran faster.\u2019 And Coach O\u2019Shea said, \u2018Yeah, and I wish I was prettier. We all wish things were different sometimes. It is what it is. Now you move on and continue with your interview process and the rest of your weekend.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really stood out with me, and it embodies that combine weekend as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And if Ball could offer any advice to the 100 prospects gathering in Edmonton this week it would be this: be honest, be authentic, don\u2019t sweat the mistakes and leave it all out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing is to just enjoy the process,\u201d he said. \u201cJust going to the Combine was one of my dreams. It can be a fun weekend to rub shoulders with the legends of the game that will be around the hotel like John Hufnagel or Coach O\u2019Shea or all these guys you get to sit down and do interviews with. So, enjoy it. Don\u2019t put too much pressure on it and be yourself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first day of practice I was going down on one of the special teams drills and I tweaked my groin. I was like, \u2018Oh no\u2026 this is brutal.\u2019 But then it was like, \u2018this is a job interview that you get once in your life. Suck it up. Put some Rub A535 on it, wrap it up, take an Epsom salt bath and go for another 24 hours to get this thing done and get drafted.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI was proud to fight through it and the fact that I went and tried to get every rep that I could get because it was a once in a lifetime thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine a four-day job interview in which your every move is studied, analyzed and over-analyzed by dozens of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-558466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}